Free Web NovelChapter 784: The Hawthorne Family
Mo Nuo Peng City.
This was a city located in a region of the Main World continent managed and influenced by the Wizard Transcendent Academy.
Although the Main World no longer had the concept of nations, the existence of Transcendent academies was like the "backbones" of various regions, influencing every aspect of these areas down to the bone.
From customs to architectural features, from attire to cognitive concepts.
Mo Nuo Peng City was a city located around the Wizard Academy, belonging to a type with a relatively long history, and its architectural style carried that gloomy vibe of wizards.
The brown stone floor tiles trodden upon the ground presented an irregular but nearly polished-smooth sense of age here.
The city planning and road arrangements here were filled with a rationality of rules and order.
Moreover, in the present day, Mo Nuo Peng City has become a very special existence.
Many streets still retained primitive tools of transportation such as hand-pulled carts and horse carriages, because modern transportation and automobiles were not allowed to pass through here, lest they disturb the residents or damage the historical remains.
Of course, the more important reason was that this was the city where the Hawthorne Family was located; their decisions were the absolute rules here.
The family's power had long since penetrated every aspect of this region.
One didn't need to think of the family as being too complex or high-and-mighty.
Even those who called themselves family members might simply be running an old shop on some street here, managing things seen everywhere—perhaps a restaurant, or maybe a newspaper office or a post office…
But through these, they subtly influenced the city's food culture, hot trends, and the transmission of important information.
They were still ordinary residents living common lives, perhaps your neighbor or living right across the door, but they became the terminal tentacles beneath the colossus of the family, perceiving any slight rustle of leaves and influencing everyone's basic needs.
And on a certain street in Mo Nuo Peng City.
Two figures walked very cheerfully on the road paved with brown stone tiles, feeling the subtle undulations of the ground with every step forward.
Even passing pedestrians would stop and stand for a second or two, watching these two girls who were so out of place here.
And these two people were, naturally, me and Big Sis Bai.
“Big Sis Bai, look, those people stopping as they pass are all looking at us.”
I said to Big Sis Bai with a light smile, leaning sideways.
“Perhaps it’s because Xiao Han is too charming?”
Big Sis Bai also joked, not caring too much.
In fact, those people who stopped were basically all family members.
Mo Nuo Peng City was already the heartland of the Hawthorne Family, roughly equivalent to their back garden.
Because of the cultural ancient city of historical sites, there were often foreign tourists visiting here.
But some very special “tourists” would easily be targeted.
I was just strolling leisurely with Big Sis Bai, but our bodies had already inadvertently been stained with a special pollen.
This pollen naturally could not hide from Big Sis Bai or me, who were Five Senses Body Cultivators.
Coupled with the Earth Vein Appraisal Spell, we knew that this pollen was highly adhesive, nearly odorless, and translucent, making it very hard to discover.
Furthermore, this pollen seemed to have undergone special sorcery modification; even ordinary transcendent means like Cleaning Spells could not completely clear away the pollen's adhesion.
Its primary role was to distinguish markers.
Using a specially bred type of butterfly, different markers could be distinguished.
Therefore, tourists coming to Mo Nuo Peng City would sometimes find that some tourists attracted beautiful butterflies; in fact, it was because they were stained with this pollen, and this had even become a feature of Mo Nuo Peng City.
But in essence, this was a type of marking and tracking localization for tourists.
Moreover, the cost was extremely low.
And at critical moments, it could be rapidly connected to transcendent means to locate even more precisely.
“What a beautiful butterfly.”
I lightly extended a finger, and under Heart Sense affinity, a colorful butterfly landed on my fingertip.
If this were someone with insect affinity, they could achieve this level with a light call as well.
But regarding perception in the field of affinity, my Heart Sense had already broken through to this special boundary.
I could perceive and resonate with non-human life, and as my cognition deepened, along with the sharing of Big Sis Bai’s insights on the practical application of Heart Sense, I began to gradually come into contact with another use for Heart Sense.
That was controlling perception channels outside of myself.
Through the understanding of Heart Sense, the operation of control could be completed by relying on Time Sense.
After all, Time Sense was not an ability limited to time.
Time was merely a subjective perception; its essence was “control” at the body cultivation level, just as Heart Sense perceiving heartbeats was only an appearance, and its essence was “understanding.”
So for the butterfly currently resting on my hand, it thought it wanted to land on my fingertip itself, but in fact, it was me resonating it to make it think it wanted to stop on my fingertip.
This was far more overbearing than simple affinity.
But… wasn't so-called affinity essentially a type of psychological control too?
It was just the difference between active and passive.
I could be so relaxed with a simple existence like an insect, but it appeared less effective for people, who were complex and clear-minded; sometimes it might even backfire.
After all, humans were far too complex.
“Big Sis Bai, do you know what to do to ruin a family you’ve never met before?”
Strolling on the street, I suddenly thought of something fun and asked.
“Mhm… I’m not sure. What should be done?”
Facing this question, Big Sis Bai also couldn't think of any way to ruin a family other than obliterating this entire city along with them.
But families had another characteristic: as long as a single person from the family remained, he was the main family, the most orthodox bloodline.
The first page of the opening volume after the family tree was destroyed, settling in another place to start from scratch—though it was difficult, they were indeed persistent.
Because a family was never a specific individual, but the family itself.
The inheritance of a family was accumulated through generations; their wealth, pride, honor, and status… none of them specified just one person.
The phrase they kept on their lips, “Even with your ten years of transcendence, how could you possibly match my ten-thousand-generation family!”
Though it made people frown with discomfort, was the truth.
You were never competing with one person, but a family.
“It’s actually very simple, you only need to kill a very common family member and that's enough.”
“Is that so? What’s the principle behind this?”
Big Sis Bai asked with some confusion as she listened to my narration.
“Because I killed a person of the family for no reason, then that person's wife, children, parents, and relatives will all hold a grudge against me and seek revenge. If they can't get revenge, they will use connections everywhere. They look for people, and I continue to kill. The more I stir things up, the more serious the matter becomes. Their social network, with the family as the bond, can be followed like a trail of vines to the melons, killing all the way up. Then this family will be completely wiped out by me.”
“This… is this some kind of cold joke?”
Big Sis Bai was made to… if looking purely from the social network perspective and ignoring other factors… want to laugh a little by my logic.
But thinking about it… it was indeed possible, but a family certainly wouldn't be so foolish as to stake the entire family.
After reaching a certain stage, how could a mere father's killer compare to the importance of the family's continuation?
“It’s ironic those family people with their layers of social networks, protective umbrellas, penetrating every aspect of society, family members protecting each other…… the society of the Main World is already the family’s world.”
This reminded me of those novels where the protagonists start by offending some second-generation rich kid, then go all the way from small places to big places, and the enemies they fight are also the second-generation rich kid's family connections all the way to the main family, with the final ending being the destruction of this tumor or something.
This trope was a very common one in the web novel world of the Main World society too.
It could be considered an indirect satire of the disgusting aspects of family relationships in the Main World……
“Does Xiao Han want to change this status quo?”
“Of course I want to, but it’s very difficult, isn't it? But… in the final analysis, it’s actually very simple, but transcendents are unwilling to take over, and those willing to take over will inevitably be corrupted by interests and power……”
Don't think transcendents couldn't be corrupted by the things of ordinary people.
There would always be transcendents willing to fall and enjoy these worldly pleasures to soothe their mental satisfaction.
Who wouldn't want to be a local tyrant?
Transcendence was merely the metamorphosis and elevation of the life level, not the metamorphosis or awakening of a person's mental realm.
“Then what are you willing to pay for this, Xiao Han?”
“Pay what? Pay my interest, my fun, and my patience. When these things are all exhausted, that's when I'll stop. In the end, this is just a complaint born from my disapproval, but it isn't the pursuit of my life, nor can it be counted as a lifelong obsession.”
“I see.”
Hearing my response, Big Sis Bai smiled involuntarily, and she smiled very happily.
She didn't want Xiao Han to be held back by such things, but clearly Xiao Han wasn't that kind of person, so she could fully relax and support Xiao Han in doing what she liked.
As long as Xiao Han was happy and joyful, she would also be very satisfied.
As I released that butterfly from my fingertip, a Cleaning Spell directly cleared the pollen from Big Sis Bai and me.
Although ordinary Cleaning Spell means couldn't clean it off, the derived Cleaning Spell I mastered was not necessarily so.
As we walked on the road and brushed past people by the roadside, it was as if two people had silently vanished from this street.
However, we were still strolling here, yet no one noticed us anymore.
“Eh this fellow who didn't notice us actually bypassed us subconsciously?”
I said with some surprise after passing by a stranger.
I had thought that the sense of presence eliminated under Big Sis Bai’s Ordinary Project would make others unable to see us, but looking at it now, this method seemed even more sophisticated.
“What are you thinking we are all just ordinary people in their eyes, so ordinary that we couldn't be more ordinary. They won't give us more attention, but it’s not that they can't see us. This feeling is like a stranger you notice out of the corner of your eye; perhaps in the next moment, you will forget him.”
“Is this the application of the concept of ordinary cognition for life at the transcendent level of the Ordinary Project?”
I marveled.
“It’s only a very shallow application.”
Big Sis Bai explained to me very patiently.
“Where are we going next? Continue enjoying a shopping trip with no one disturbing us, or go straight to find your bit of fun?”
“Of course we’ll stroll all the way there.”
I extended a finger pointing toward the massive castle in the distance.
That was the main house of the Hawthorne Family—at least it was the main base in name and on the surface.
Further ahead was an area where tourists were stopped, but these likewise couldn't block our steps.
The deeper we went, the more we discovered that the surrounding residences and villas became more secluded; even the roads had turned into a sense of dedicated cars and lanes.
There were even main roads and branch roads divided around, connecting and penetrating various parts of that castle that occupied a huge area.
This was the most direct division and manifestation of status within the family lineages.
The more long-standing and far-reaching the family, the more stringent their family rules.
Or rather, families never raised children, but clearly divided family heirs, followed by various identities downward, including but not limited to students entering Transcendent academies, heads in charge of family industries, and so on.
It was as if treating children like every component within the family.
From behavior and manners to character shaping, dealing with people, family etiquette, indoctrination of concepts, family supreme……
Perhaps various families were all somewhat different, but they were all gradually converging in their management of the family; it was just a matter of strictness and looseness.
This reminded me of the experience Liffia told me about back then… it truly was lamentable.
Big Sis Bai and I strolled along the quiet roads while appreciating the images of the past.
We were walking on a branch road, not the main road, so the Earth Vein Appraisal Spell tracing back historical scenes and images on this road were all the lives of people with lower status in the family.
But in the end, we were just spectators.
We were also too lazy to give extra sympathy or empathy to these people.
Don't talk about how they enjoyed the family's benefits yet faced the suppression of life and the family's crackdowns, the disparity in status, or how their daily lives were like walking on a tightrope.
In one sentence: what does that have to do with me?
I haven't experienced it, and I can't empathize with such sorrow.
I only saw the rise and fall of the family and the surface brilliance.
No matter how much hardship and fatigue they endured, they could still look at those people at the bottom like ants.
Enjoying the superiority the family brought her, while hating the shackles and suppression the family gave.
It was just a difference in lifestyle.
Even I enjoyed the confidence transcendence endowed me with to define those I considered to be foolish people or groups.
These were all objective perspectives of empathy, and also the way I liked to view things most in the past.
But humans always have to be a bit selfish.
The current me should care a bit more for myself…… selfish to the point of not needing to care too much about the pointing and feelings of others, ignoring those who consume me.
What mattered in the end was only one’s own experience.
One can't always satisfy everyone.
Recognizing one's own positioning and figuring out what one needs is what’s important.
Just like me arriving here at this moment, for this place, I was the most terrifying time bomb!
Therefore, I was the villain…
Coming here to do what I hoped to achieve.
Perhaps my actions would harm the interests of too many people, but it didn't matter as long as I wasn't harming myself.
“Xiao Han by the way, that April you mentioned before is a member of this family, right? What are you going to do next? According to what you said, her current situation should be very bad.”
